FBI looks into gas line cut

From NBC's Pete WilliamsVirginia officials, aided by the FBI, are looking into how a residential propane feeder line was cut at the home of the brother of a Virginia congressman.

Investigators have reached no conclusions about how or why it happened. But the line was cut after the home's address was posted on a blog and a Facebook page, both maintained by members of a local Tea Party group who thought it was the home of Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat who voted in favor of the health-care bill.

One said, "This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello's home address," and added, "I ain't holding back anymore!!" The other urged readers to "drop by" the home and "express their thanks" for the vote.

The cut in the gas line, which runs from a propane tank to a gas grill on a screened-in porch, was discovered Tuesday, the day after the address was posted. When they realized that it was incorrect, the operators of the blog and Faceboook page took the address off.

The chairman of the Lynchburg, VA, Tea Party, Mark Lloyd, told NBC News, "I learned what happened after the fact. We made an official statement on our Web site," saying that that his group "did not request, sanction, or endorse" posting the address, which appeared on a different Web site.

Tea Party member Nigel Coleman, who wrote one of the Internet posts, told the Charlottesville Daily Progress that he was shocked when he heard about the incident.

"I would hope that people aren't thinking about doing anything crazy," the paper quoted him as saying. "We just wanted people to get close to the congressman and have their voices heard. Violence is not going to answer anything."